Two translucent cylinders, each up to three stories tall, loom over the outdoor plaza of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. A small, red sphere jutting out of the side of the structure emits a constant stream of bubbles, inviting passersby to stop and wander closer. Although the structure appears dull and uninteresting from the outside, viewers are instantly transported into a fascinating world filled with changing light, colors and shapes as soon as they step through the doorway.
OO is a temporary installation by STUDIOLIN made out of corrugated plastic sheet and metal scaffolding. The museum chose the piece out of 36 entries for this year’s Program X-site, which showcases work that blends art and architecture to encourage new ways of thinking about spatial relations.
This year’s theme is “In Progress,” as the museum recently finished a huge renovation. The architectural design studio behind OO was established in Taipei in 2014 with the motto “from establishing the general to reveal the specific.” The work aims to prompt viewers to reconsider past bodily experiences and question what is assumed to be open or public.
Photo: Christine Lin
Standing inside OO, viewers feel as if they have left the museum and entered a futuristic construction site. An immense, cylindrical plastic sheet — reminiscent of a UFO — draws the viewer’s attention towards the sky.
The bare scaffolding, corrugated plastic and scattered containers of bubble solution give the structure an unfinished appearance, as if it was still in the process of assembly. However, while these materials are typically uninteresting when seen in construction sites, they are transformed into a captivating work of art when they reflect the sun’s rays and create a brilliant spectrum of iridescent colors.
According to the studio, these materials were specifically chosen because they bend light and generate different visual effects at varying times of day.
Photo: Christine Lin
Within the installation are three bubble machines humorously named Bob, Kevin, and Stuart — just like the three minions in the Despicable Me movie franchise. Similar to the minions, each machine is shaped differently, and each has a unique mechanism for producing bubbles. Despite the heat and harsh steel scaffolding, the structure’s interior has a serene atmosphere.
The repetitive opening and closing motion of the bubble machine soothes the viewer as a single delicate bubble is released each time. STUDIOLIN placed the bubble machines inside the structures to give invisible air currents visible form. With each release, there is a moment of anticipation as viewers watch how the bubble will interact with its surrounding environment. The playfulness of the bubbles and the shrieks of joy they elicit from young children contribute to the site’s whimsical mood.
The ephemeral nature of bubbles makes OO a dynamic and engaging work of art. The installation will remain outside the museum until Sunday, and includes several interactive works of art, such as a sound installation accessible by QR code.
Photo: Christine Lin
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist